


Flag

by YogurtTime



Series: One Word Prompt Fics/Drabbles (Shyan) [3]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Missing Persons, implied potential relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 20:33:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15178775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogurtTime/pseuds/YogurtTime
Summary: Word Prompt: Flag / Genre Prompt: Angst / "People don't just vanish."





	Flag

Shane’s fingers felt strange on the tilt gear wand of the window blinders, but he twisted methodically until the slivers of sunlight glaring across the table collapsed into shade.

It had taken him nearly a week before he could set foot in this room, but now he was pacing there. Every few steps or so, he’d glance at the equipment set up in the corner of the room, trying not to put too much of a concrete thought to its significance, no names or faces; just inanimate objects, just things.

The detective had come by the Buzzfeed offices again, had asked the managers for records, bookkeeping and receipts. Shane had finally learned not to hover because the detective didn’t trust him to be objective about this.

How could he be though?

How could he be objective when he’d been trapped in his own head, rerunning the feel of that morning over and over again? Ryan’s bag by the door, phone and keys still on the nightstand and the birds in the trees dead silent outside the cabin and the sound of their staff tiptoeing around Shane, moving quietly as they packed up, worried that one word--one single word would set him off.

Shane breathed evenly out his nose. Could hear the sound of the dogs still, loud snuffles and the crack of branches and brush in the woods and the occasional shout.

_Ryan!_

He always heard the empty sound of his own voice in those woods, how the moisture from the moss had got in his clothes, chilled him down to his core.

 _“People don’t just vanish.”_ It was starting to sound like a mantra in the middle of his tongue.

Every time someone asked him again. _“What did he say to you last?”_

The issue was that Shane only remembered Ryan’s sleeping face on the other side of the bed. Moments before he had switched off the lamp; he’d looked right at Ryan, unbothered by noises this time, no thought of ghouls or the idiotic notion of demons. He remembered Ryan’s hitched breaths shifting in the dark, getting comfortable, moving into Shane’s warmth like a magnet.

Shane remembered the cold when he woke up and Ryan was gone.

 _“Do you think a ghost or something…?_ ”

They’d trail off when they asked him that, looked him right in the eye and let the thought die because he was shutting them down with a glare, an anguished twist of his mouth, knowing that if anyone even _dared_...

The last time Shane had pestered the police, the lead detective had smiled a pale, grim smile. _“It’s usually forty-eight hours before we start looking for a body, but the circumstance is just so strange. Honestly, Mr. Madej, we need to start managing our expectations....”_

That still made Shane so angry. The thought of it. Of giving up. Of saying the words to himself let alone to _anyone_ made him want to throw things, sap up something prickled and dark in him and break something fragile. Shane sucked in a shaky breath, uncurling his fists, aware of how his knuckles cracked from being clenched so long.

The camera let out a soft, tentative beep when he hit ‘record’. It felt like a long walk to the table, and an even longer effort to sit himself down. He wasn’t going to do what everyone was waiting for him to do. This was what he was going to do.

“Welcome to another episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved. I’m Shane Madej and this week we’re going to re-examine the events that lead to Ryan Bergara’s disappearance last Tuesday. Ryan, if you’re out there and somehow you see this, I’m not giving up. I’m going to find you.”

Everyone thought he was crazy, but Shane would never have gotten where he was by waving any white flags.


End file.
